Norby rolls to easy Assembly win

Assemblyman elect Chris Norby thanks his supporters during his election night party at Cherch Lounge in Fullerton Tuesday night. KEVIN SULLIVAN, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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Assemblyman elect Chris Norby is congratulated during his election night party at Cherch Lounge in Fullerton Tuesday night. KEVIN SULLIVAN, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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Assemblyman elect Chris Norby thanks his supporters during his election night party at Cherch Lounge in Fullerton Tuesday night. Norby is expected to easily win Tuesday's special election to fill the vacant 72nd Assembly District seat. KEVIN SULLIVAN, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

Assemblyman elect Chris Norby celebrates with his wife Martha after initial returns showed a considerable lead in his election bid to fill the vacant 72nd Assembly District seat at his election night party at Cherch Lounge in Fullerton Tuesday night. KEVIN SULLIVAN, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

County Supervisor Chris Norby, right, checks election results with his kids Ana, 11, center, and Gary, 9, during his election night party at Cherch Lounge in Fullerton Tuesday night. KEVIN SULLIVAN, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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Lauryn Picchiano, executive director of the Republican Party of Orange County, puts up a Elect Norby sign before his election night party at Cherch Lounge in Fullerton Tuesday night. KEVIN SULLIVAN, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

Lauryn Picchiano, executive director of the Republican Party of Orange County, photographs election results off a laptop screen durng Chris Norby's election night party at Cherch Lounge in Fullerton Tuesday night. KEVIN SULLIVAN, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

Assemblyman elect Chris Norby, center, is congratulated during his election night party at Cherch Lounge in Fullerton Tuesday night. KEVIN SULLIVAN, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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An Elect Norby sign adorns a wall at Cherch Lounge in Fullerton during Chris Norby's election night party at Cherch Lounge in Fullerton Tuesday night. KEVIN SULLIVAN, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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Nine-year-old Iris Norby, left, and her brother Gary, 9, check election results for their father Chris Norby during his election night party at Cherch Lounge in Fullerton Tuesday night. KEVIN SULLIVAN, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

Assemblyman elect Chris Norby thanks his supporters during his election night party at Cherch Lounge in Fullerton Tuesday night. KEVIN SULLIVAN, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

County Supervisor Chris Norby cruised to an easy win in Tuesday's special election to fill the state Assembly seat vacated by Mike Duvall, who resigned in September after he was caught bragging about extramarital sex.

Norby, the Republican nominee, was buoyed by being better known, having more campaign cash, and by the Republicans' 9 percentage point advantage among voters in the 72nd Assembly District. Norby beat Democrat John MacMurray by a 2-1 margin, getting 63 percent of the vote to MacMurrary's 31 percent. Only about 15 percent of voters cast ballots in the race.

"There was a very difficult inter-party race in November, but this runoff was very different with the party registration what it is," said Norby, a 60-year-old Fullerton resident. "We spent most of our money and energy in the primary."

The Green Party's Jane Rands, who rounded out the field, finished a distant third.

A date for swearing in has not been set, although it is likely to occur before the end of January. Norby must first resign his supervisor's seat. His Assembly District includes all of Fullerton, Placentia and Brea, and parts of Yorba Linda, Anaheim, Orange and La Habra.

Norby has spent seven years as supervisor and, before that, 18 years as a Fullerton City Council member. The former high school teacher emphasized education in his campaign, calling for a bigger slice of schools funds to go to the classroom. In an effort to attract and retain quality teachers, he's touted his proposal that 60 percent of school funding go to teachers.

Norby has long been an activist leading the charge for reform of redevelopment districts. He believes too many tax breaks and tax dollars are spent unnecessarily for retail establishments, and that money would be better spent on other public needs – including education.

MacMurray, a 63-year-old middle-school teacher, was making his third bid for the Assembly seat. He lost to Duvall by 21.5 percentage points in 2006 and 9.6 percentage points in 2008. Norby will face reelection later this year, and it's not yet clear whether MacMurray will run again. MacMurray did not return calls from The Orange County Register on election night.

Duvall, 54, resigned his seat on Sept. 9 after an Assembly committee videotape was made public in which he bragged about sexual affairs with two women other than his wife, and discussed spanking one of them. The comments were made to a fellow assemblyman during a break at a public meeting.

Several news reports identified one of the women as a 36-year-old Sacramento lobbyist. She publicly denied having any affair with Duvall, a Republican. Duvall himself, who'd campaigned as a family values candidate, later said he made the whole story up.

Norby's supervisorial seat will be filled by the winner of a June election. If the winner receives more than 50 percent of the vote, he or she will serve the remainder of the year – Norby's current term – and the following 4-year term. If the winner receives less than 50 percent of the vote, that person will serve out the rest of Norby's term but will face the second-highest vote getter in a November runoff for the upcoming 4-year term.

The campaign leading up to Tuesday's special election was low key compared to the Nov. 17 primary, when Norby and Linda Ackerman, who sits on the National Republican Committee, went at it tooth and claw, with more than a dozen mailers filling voters' mailboxes.

Norby prevailed with 37 percent of the primary vote. MacMurray received 27 percent of the vote, and Ackerman received 20 percent of the vote.

Both the primary and Tuesday's election featured low turnout. On Tuesday, 81 percent of the ballots were cast by mail. The outcome Tuesday was clear shortly after 8 p.m., when the tally for most of the mail ballots was announced and Norby was picked on 62 percentof them.

Tuesday night's tally, not including mail ballots turned in at the polls and provisional ballots, showed Norby with 20,292 votes, MacMurray with 10,018, and Rands with 1,963.

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